For Sydney Design 08 the organisers have decided that their mascot will be a bucket. And not just any bucket, one with a hole in it. Not just a well-designed piece of humour the buckets are part of a project to encourage discussion on good design, There’s A Hole In My Bucket.

20 Sydney designers have been given a bucket each to go and photograph in a spot they think has been poorly designed. But you don’t have to be a whiz on Creative Suite to get involved, there are buckets to be picked up all around town so that you can have a say too. Just pick one up, take it somewhere useless and snap it. Submit your shot online and it’ll be uploaded to the photo gallery.

Buckets with holes in them can be picked up from:

BEAUTIFUL ON THE INSIDE, 45/322 BOURKE ST, SURRY HILLS
PIGEON GROUND, 102 SALISBURY RD, CAMPERDOWN
VIA ALLEY, SHOP 2, 289 LIVERPOOL ST, DARLINGHURST
JUST SHOOT, 16 ELIZABETH ST, PADDINGTON
OUR MISH MASH, 11 CURLEWIS ST, BONDI
DOBRY DEN, 326 CROWN ST, SURRY HILLS
TWOTHOUSAND STUDIO, 16 - 28 FOSTER ST, SURRY HILLS

Finally we have the adult equivalent of the colouring in competition. The first annual International Skull Drawing Competition has just been announced by the world’s smallest elevator gallery Rise and Fall with $1000 USD up for grabs for the best black and white skull on A4. Entries close on April 18 with the skull judging, exhibition and skull crowning to take place at Curtin House in Melbourne on April 30. Get the full submission guidelines here and get cracking!

Is Sydney becoming the first port of call for Japanese fashion? Lets hope so. The Japanese designer T-Shirt institution Graniph have just opened their first store outside of Asia right here in Sydney at the Galleries Victoria. In Japan alone there are 30+ stores, galleries and a network of artists and designers from all over the world, which at just $40 for a limited edition cotton tee from the likes of Jan von Hollenben, Terri Weifenbach, Mikko Rantanen and local faves Beci Orphin and Lyn & Tony sounds pretty good to me. Now if they would just give us even a little slice of Harajuku then we’d pretty much have it all.

Whenever the term peer-to-peer is mentioned we think of file sharing our music, movies and software online while occasionally the debate about the moral implications of the free online markets that have been created is raised again. While the debates about the legality and morality of sharing our entertainment raged on the team at Kiva.org realised that a P2P platform was the perfect way to channel loans from the rich to the poor across the globe without the overheads that leave those in need receiving a fraction of the original donation.
Benefactors are able to give loans to struggling businesses that in turn gradually repay their loan, a system that guarantees the working poor are able to gain economic independence. An independence that has enabled those such as Roselyne Namala Makendo (pictured) to expand her grocery store in Kenya to continue supporting her nine children and an invaluable commodity if the gap between the North and the South is ever to be bridged.

Over the last few years we’ve seen the rise of the social networking site to the point where there are some amongst us who spend an unhealthy amount of time making online friends. The girls from Ground Floor Collaboration Christie Coleman and Michelle Gilmore saw the need for a networking website for young, creative and innovative Australians that could be truly constructive. “We were a little puzzled as to why Australia ranks 17th on the OECD table of innovative countries. Then we found out that only 2.1 percent of our GDP is spent on innovation, well below the average.” Says Gilmore.

GFC is a web environment where ideas are developed, jobs shared and even business advice is dished out. All you have to do is log on and make profile; from there you can put your idea out there, help out on someone else’s project or submit a group proposal for one of the high-profile projects. At last there’s a way to make friends with real benefits.